The_Liquid_Laser said:Heh, I know old prediction threads like this are funny, but the OP makes the same basic mistake that I still see a lot of people making today. Namely, he thinks generation 8 will determine generation 9. Nope. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Every new set of consoles is a huge reset in the market place. Did the best selling console of all time, the PS2, lead to the PS3's success? Nope. Did the PS3's massive financial failure hinder the PS4? Nope. Did the Gamecube hinder the Wii? Nope. Did the Wii help the Wii U? Nope.

Every generation is different. Every time a console launches it's a huge reset in the marketplace. The only thing we know for sure about generation 9 is that the Switch is already successful. That already puts PS5 and Scarlett at a disadvantage. I am sure they would rather be competing against another Wii U. Instead it is more like they are competing against another Wii.

People have a habit of basing firm predictions on the exceptionally small sample size of generations that we've had thus far. The NA market is notoriously resistant to brand loyalty, for instance, seeming to hop from platform to platform be it Atari, Nintendo, sega, Sony, or Microsoft. The only consistent trend I've ever really noticed is that Nintendo tends to dominate handhelds, and I think much of that can be attributed straight to Pokémon.

Who could have predicted that Microsoft, with all the momentum they'd accrued from the previous gen, would absolutely face plant out of the gate this time around? It's just hard to predict these things as something as simple as a bad price point can derail a console.

You make an excellent point. We only have had a few generations so far. And yet people limit their data even further by only looking back 1-2 generations. On top of that, people often look at the home market only and ignore the handheld market. So while data is limited, it seems people making predictions often go the extra mile to ignore most of the information we actually do have.